


and they do terrible things to each other

by strangesaturday



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Data Has Android Emotions, M/M, don’t worry it will be over soon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26780707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangesaturday/pseuds/strangesaturday
Summary: Data’s tenure on the Enterprise ended the same day his relationship with Geordi did.
Relationships: Data/Geordi La Forge, Geordi La Forge & Deanna Troi
Comments: 15
Kudos: 29





	and they do terrible things to each other

Data’s tenure on the Enterprise ended the same day his relationship with Geordi did. Picard (stunned) and Riker (fuming) cornered him in the conference room for three full hours, implored him to sleep on the matter. Data insisted there was no need. His transfer request was approved.

One didn’t need organic eyes to see the message written on everyone’s face: It _mathematically_ couldn’t have been Data’s fault, which meant it was Geordi’s. No one seemed to consider the alternative: that Data wouldn’t have gotten involved with someone likely to hurt him, so it must have been something Data did himself. Geordi said as much to Deanna, the argument feeling flimsy even as he made it. She just pursed her lips, shook her head, and advised him to request a couple of days off duty.

She had immediately taken a defensive posture on Geordi’s behalf— the atmosphere both on and off the bridge was that bad. Every interaction he had was cloaked in a thick layer of Starfleet professionalism, but he read in his colleague’s physiology how hard they worked to suppress their true feelings—shock and confusion rapidly evolving into anger, grief, disdain. A breakup usually isn’t bad enough to end a person’s career, but this one might be.

Deanna could feel him from eight decks away. She went to his quarters.

“Geordi, you don’t have to convince me. I agree with you. Data should have known that requesting a transfer right away would make things worse for you. Perhaps he did know, and did it anyway. When our hearts are broken we often make decisions we would not otherwise.”

“He doesn’t have a heart.”

“Geordi—”

“No, Deanna, he literally doesn’t have one! What he does have is a massive brain that saw an opportunity to royally screw me over.” Geordi stopped pacing, his arms fell limply to his sides. “Will’s furious with me. No, no, he is, I can tell as well as you can. And Keiko— I saw her in the corridor just now, she wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

Deanna sighed. “This is the worst it will be, Geordi. Everyone is reeling. A great number of people are suddenly realizing your relationship was a more significant constant in their lives than they understood.”

“I didn’t sign up to be part of the ship’s emotional support couple.”

Deanna crossed her arms. “I will be very candid with you. Data is uniquely beloved among the crew. He is charming. He is kind. He can be adorably naive. This makes him easy to invest in emotionally, and frankly, easy to infantilize.”

Geordi opened his mouth, and Deanna stopped him with a raised finger.

“Let me finish. Of course, Data is much more than those few things. I am merely pointing out the realities which make the news of his transfer more painful to our community than is usual. The senior officers, as well as your staff, are as true of friends to you as they are to Data, and they will come around eventually. It may not be fair, but they need time to process.”

Geordi sat heavily on the couch. “You’re right about that. It isn’t fair.”

“No. And yet staying angry will not change your situation a bit.”

“That’s your advice as my counselor?”

“And as a friend. A sister.”

“My sister! Oh, god, Ariana is going to lose her mind.” Geordi buried his face in his hands with a groan. “Get ready to see a lot of me, Deanna. You really are the only one I get to keep in the divorce.”

Deanna sat next to him, and when she spoke her tone was jarringly stern. “Stop this. Stop deflecting what really needs your attention, Geordi. Or you will push everyone who loves you even further away.”

He snapped to attention. He observed the contours of her face: her expression, unlike her voice, was gentle. Her Betazoid blood ran warmer than a Human’s, and his VISOR reflected her temperature in kaleidoscopic yellows and pinks.

For once, she didn’t prompt her patient to verbalize his feelings. He didn’t need to say anything for her to know the kind of hell he was in. Geordi’s ego crumbled into her arms, and she gently removed his VISOR so the tears could flow uninterrupted. His compact body shuddered as he sobbed.

“It’s not the end of the relationship that hurts the most,” Geordi choked. “Not the romance, anyway. He’s my friend. _Was_ — I lost my best friend. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with myself. There’s this hole, already this hole in my— in my chest—” He pressed his tear-streaked face into her shoulder. “I’ll never meet anyone else like him.”

“No. You won’t. But,” Deanna tipped his face to meet unseeing white eyes with her black ones. “Data will never meet anyone like you, either.”

If it was slim comfort, that was because it was not meant to be comforting at all. It was simply the truth.

Deanna canceled her evening appointments, did not join the poker game which the other officers valiantly attempted to proceed with. She climbed into bed in full uniform and cried. She cried the way she did on days the ship narrowly escaped catastrophe and she had to cope with the emotional fallout of every soul on board. She cried because Geordi was so badly hurt and she worried how the pain might change him. She cried for herself, losing a friend to a new assignment. And she cried hot, frightened tears for the look Data had given her as he strode to the captain’s ready room, when she spoke his name and he turned to her and she was struck by the emptiness of his face, the eyes which held no spark of interest or recognition.

Deanna cried, tried to soothe herself with a convenient lie: Androids do not feel heartbreak. Androids do not feel, at all.

In a week, there was a red-headed junior lieutenant at ops. In a month, the Enterprise had a new Chief Engineer.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick little punch in the gut for you. Title taken from the poem "Aesthetics of Crying" by Heather Christle.
> 
> tumblr @ strangesaturday
> 
> come hang out in the [daforge discord server!](https://discord.gg/qMAGw5BqXg) the tone is generally much lighter than that of this fic lol. (18+ only, please)


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